November 2008
Bright Futures for Wales alumni
Wales International Consortium has followed its highly successful Bright Futures project of 2006 with the launch of its new Bright Futures website. The website features profiles of successful Wales alumni from all around the world as well as articles about worldwide events taking place organized by the higher education institutions of Wales.
Higher education in Wales has long since recognised the importance of its current students and alumni in promoting and developing the business, academic and research successes of Wales throughout the world Most higher education institutions in Wales have alumni offices or are in the processing of establishing them in order to ensure that all effort is made to support alumni and current students in acting as ambassadors for Wales, whilst also providing the opportunity for Wales alumni to stay in contact with their fellow students wherever they are in the world.
Wales International Consortium hosted two alumni events in Toronto and Vancouver, in September 2008, in which staff from Bangor University, Cardiff University, Glyndwr University, Swansea Metropolitan University, Swansea University, Trinity College Carmarthen, University of Glamorgan, University of Wales Lampeter and University of Wales Newport all participated.
Jennifer Ferguson from the International Office at Swansea University said of the event, “It was a pleasure to meet with our alumni in Toronto and Vancouver, and I sincerely enjoyed listening as the alumni swapped stories and shared memories of their time at Swansea University, and in Wales, in general. As an International Officer with the University, I was particularly interested in learning why our alumni chose to study at Swansea. Surprisingly, our alumni from 20 and 30 years ago were attracted to Swansea for the same reasons as many of our international students today! Our Alumni Association currently consists of over 40,000 former students and is growing every day, and we do our best to keep in touch, often organizing events when we’re abroad. Touching base with former students around the world is not always an easy task, and I would like to kindly thank both WIC and our Alumni Office for organizing such successful events in Canada.”
The University of Glamorgan has held of stream of events throughout the world including Zambia; Shanghai, Beijing, Kuala Lumpur, Toronto, Vancouver and Hong Kong.
Contact details for all alumni offices in Wales are featured on the Bright Futures website
www.walesinternationalconsortium.com/students/Bright_futures.shtml